Making of the Modern World February 3.docx

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School

Lakehead University

Department

History

Course

1100

Professor

Valerie Hebert

Semester

Fall

Description

Making of the Modern World
February 3, 2014
The New Imperialism
Key Terms
• The “ new imperialism”
• The Scrable for Africa 1884
• The “ White Man’s Burden” – Rudyard Kipling
• Social Imperialism
• Boer War 1899­1902
• Fashoda Crisis 1898
European Boundaries Redrawn
• 1815 and 1900
• newly created states trying to gain prestige on the world stage
• old states trying to maintain their prestige
• nationalism intensifying, lead to ride in hatred of enemies
• Atmosphere thick with ambition and fear
• Could and would lead to war
The New Imperialism
• Nations of Europe vying to increase in power and status to win colonies and
expand territories
• 1880s and 1890s Britain France German Italy Spain Portugal and Belguim all
raced to control places outside of Europe
• According the new imperialism ideology that the balance of power in Europe had
ot be extended to the world
• Rivalries and protections needed to be extended to the whole world
• People began to think of their nations as world powers
• Non­western world seen as pot of un­claimed treasure
Industrial revolution impact
• More efficient means of travel were needed
• More money was needed
• New ways of moving across oceans quicker allowed the exploration of rivers of
Africa
• Until 1850 Europeans had traveled no farther than coastal areas
• Europeans took note of natural terrain and resources
• Britain had vast telegraph network
• Vast Caricature of Cecil Rhodes with his proposed telegraph cable from Cairo to
Cape Town
• Technological development that aided in civilization: new forms of weaponry • 1875 – 1914 Scramble for Africa
• by 1914 90% of the African continent had be seized by European states
• Ethiopia and Liberia
• Liberia had been created for emancipated slaved
• Consistency makes top 5 list of worst places to live
King Leopold and the Congolese
• Historians agree that the person who began the scramble for Africa was King
Leopold of Belgium
• Early 1876 Leopold 2 went to the Congo to secure slaves
• Operated under the context that he was going to go to the Congo to end the slave
trade of Africa by the Arabs and open the country up to Christianity
• 1876 he organized a company called The International African Association
• IAA stripped country of Ivory, harvested Rubber from Rubber Trees
• Leopold turned the Congo basin into a vast labour force
• Enforced high demands of work on the Congolese
• Workers were killed if they did not work hard enough
• Held women and children for ransom to make men work
• Congolese men did the killing, ordered to bring back severed hands as proof of
the murder
• Wanted to make sure the guns were used for killing not hunting
• Cut off the hands of the living to prove that the rubber demand was too high
• The hands became a currency, used to prove loyalty and gain a shorter sentence
• 10 million people died due to the Colonial practices in the Congo
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most violent countries in the
world
• Until photographic evidence, Leopold had denied the goings on in The Congo
• Leopold applied for recognition of his rule of the Congo under the name of a
company
• France and Portugal objected because they wanted in too
• International disagreement about who can do what in Africa
Berlin Conference
• Leopold was given possession of the Congo Free State
• Established the ground rules for the recognition for colonial claims in Africa
• Protocol was that colonizing countries would need to create a real presence with
proof of a steady economy
• Berlin Conference organized and gave an order to it
• Countries would meet and trade territories with each other
• In the beginning might have seemed peaceful, but there was always a readiness to
kill Africans
• 1884 Hibram Maxim invented machine gun that could sho